


show me where it hurts

by lovingness



Series: haikyuu!! one shots [3]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, extended band-aid and finger tape metaphors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-18
Updated: 2020-07-18
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:33:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25350937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovingness/pseuds/lovingness
Summary: Maybe people take a certain kind of focus to hold, too.Tobio wonders if holding someone is like the grip of band-aids on one’s skin, of finger tape around sore digits. Or, if it’s like careful distance. If that distance can be closed.
Relationships: Kageyama Tobio/Tsukishima Kei
Series: haikyuu!! one shots [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1782424
Comments: 7
Kudos: 117





	show me where it hurts

**Author's Note:**

> ["a lot's gonna change" by weyes blood.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OrVUk61wHE)

Tobio’s high school graduation comes and goes like ripping off a band-aid. 

It’s the sting of the monotonous “Congrats!” he reads on cards, the way he only needs to reserve three seats for his parents and Miwa to attend, and the unfamiliar suffocation knowing that this is the last time he’ll wear his school uniform that all feel like the pinch, the pull of fabric and adhesive off of hair and skin. The edges of a scab pulling up, dried with blood and dead skin, and the outline of where the band-aid just was. Like he barely made it through everything and even after it all, there’s still the lingering ache.

Getting home after the ceremony means collapsing into bed in the mid-afternoon dimness of his room, unbuttoning his uniform jacket, and sitting up just enough to toss it onto the floor. Miwa and his parents call from the kitchen about a snack, but Tobio falls asleep turned on his side facing the wall. Pepper, Tobio’s cat taken in after Kazuyo passed, paws at his door with pitiful meows.

He wishes Kazuyo could’ve been there, but Tobio thinks he knows better than to wish for the impossible.

  
  
  
  
  


Miwa complains, sitting at her desk and taking out her piercings, about standards of dress when she graduates. She looks over her shoulder at Tobio, seated on the edge of her bed in his suit, and smirks a little. “Lucky butt. Your graduation’s gonna be a piece of cake.”

Tobio stares, hands in his lap. “Really?”

“Yeah,” she continues, facing the little round light-up mirror again. Her hands go further up her right ear, fingers fiddling with the helix ring she got a few months ago. “You’ll get your uniform on, walk across the stage, and be done with it.” She undoes the ring with a sigh. “Easy peasy.”

Tobio watches her set the ring beside some other pieces of jewelry before she stands, stretching her arms above her head and letting them drop with a sigh. “How long is it ‘til my graduation?”

“Uh, seven years?” She laughs. “Don’t worry about that right now.”

Their mom calls from the living room, something about how they’re going to be late if the two of them don’t hurry up, and Miwa responds with a “Be there in a second!” before she looks at Tobio one more time. “Seriously. Enjoy being a kid, Tobio. Try new things while I’m gone.”

  
  
  
  
  


Tobio is not an idiot, nor does he miss the way Kuroo Testurou and Kei look at each other in the practice gyms at training camp. Their silent conversations and understandings louder than anything else.

  
  
  
  
  


Shouyou texts Tobio maybe twenty times in the week after he graduates, but it’s the text from Kei that stands out most to him. It’s simple: “Serve practice tomorrow night? I got the gym key from Tadashi.”

Tobio replies, an even simpler: “Sure.”

He sends Shouyou the middle-finger emoji and the poop emoji, to which Shouyou responds with too many exclamation points and questions, and then tosses his phone on top of his volleyball bag from where he sits at his desk. He’s got the current roster of the Schweiden Adlers pulled up on his laptop, but he closes out of it and opens another window.

Tobio types in and then hits enter for autocomplete to search “division 2 japan volleyball teams,” the link for the Sendai Frogs’ upcoming season roster highlighted to tell him he’s already visited it. He wonders idly when Kei starts practices.

  
  
  
  


Kei curses at practice the week after they make it to nationals in their first year, calling for a break when he blocks a particularly nasty spike from Asahi. Tobio sees him rubbing at his fingers as Kei walks over to the medical bag, waving Sugawara off before he stoops and pulls out a roll of finger tape.

Jogging over when he sees Kei refusing to let anyone help, Tobio stands over him a little amused. “Let me,” he says, kneeling.

“I’m fine,” Kei starts, but protests only half-heartedly as Tobio takes the tape and pulls a fresh piece of it off. 

Tobio, then, sits cross-legged across from him, Kei silently placing his injured hand on Tobio’s right knee. He holds his pinky and ring finger tight side-by-side as Tobio winds the tape around them, skin disappearing a centimeter at a time. Their heads, bent looking at hands touching, inch closer and closer, tired breaths barely mingling in the space between them. Tobio stares fixedly at Kei’s fingers, at the twitch that lightens up the longer their skin touches.

Kei looks at the tape job when Tobio is done and nods once. “Thanks.”

“No problem,” Tobio replies, breathless. “Anytime.”

  
  
  
  
  


“Tobio, you want to hold the ball with both hands.” Kazuyo, kneeling in front of him, adjusts Tobio’s hands and sits back a little on his haunches. “Grip your fingers, but not too tight. Stay relaxed.”

Small fingertips pressing in as hard as he can, Tobio narrows his eyes. He makes an enemy of the childish reach of his kid-sized hands.

Kazuyo, though, chuckles. “Relax.” He takes the ball and sets it atop the pads of his own fingers in a demonstration. “Like this.”

Tobio takes it again loosely, his glare on the ball softening a little, then gasps when he tries to kneel as quickly as he can to catch the ball before it hits the ground. The ball’s thud on the dirt of his backyard is unmistakable, but so is the sudden pain blooming in his knees. 

Kazuyo hums when Tobio starts to cry, tears welling in frustrated eyes. “Come here; did’ja get a little scratched up? We’ll get a band-aid from inside.” Tobio nods, letting Kazuyo scoop him up to hold him against his warm chest. “There’s some apple slices in the fridge. Maybe Miwa wants some, too. Look, Pepper’s here to make you feel better.”

  
  
  
  
  


The way the muscles in Kei’s arms flex when he serves is- a little distracting, Tobio thinks as he dives a second too late to receive the ball. It is decidedly _not_ the fifth time he’s gotten sidetracked that night, but as he falls to his knees with a wince Kei huffs out a laugh from the other side of the net. Tobio’s face heats up, not just from exertion.

“Losing your focus, king?” Kei mocks teasingly.

Tobio flops onto his back, chest heaving. He looks sideways over at Kei. “Not a chance, asshole.”

“Who’re you gonna insult when we’re gone?” Kei asks with all of his false sincerity. “Certainly not me.”

“We’re not in the same league,” Tobio says, sitting up. “And Hinata’s leaving.”

Kei clicks his tongue, tossing a few stray balls into the carts. “Poor Kageyama. No one to name-call.”

“I’ll send you voice messages every day if you’re gonna miss it so bad.”

He laughs a little louder at that, and Kei sits down with a ball. He rolls it to Tobio under the net. “That’s not- what I’ll miss,” he finishes, voice suddenly quiet.

Tobio rolls the ball back. “Hard to think you’d miss anyone besides Tadashi.”

Kei stops the ball rolling with his right hand, left hand resting on instinct. “Maybe two years ago, but- not now.”

Tobio stares, and Kei looks up with surprisingly soft eyes. 

  
  
  
  
  


He confesses in his first year of junior high that he isn’t sure Pepper likes him that much.

Kazuyo laughs, sitting beside Tobio on the couch with Pepper asleep peacefully on his lap. “She likes everyone, trust me. Just doesn’t know how to show it sometimes.”

“I just wanna pet her,” Tobio mumbles, staring at Pepper. His bottom lip puffs into a pout.

Kazuyo looks at Tobio for a second longer, then down at Pepper. “Go ahead,” he says quietly. He takes one of Tobio’s hands, laying it on Pepper’s side, and covers it with his own larger hand. The roughness of his palm sandwiches Tobio’s fingers with Pepper’s thin fur underneath them.

It’s then, though, that Pepper wakes up and mewls, meow warping into a long yawn. Tobio, suddenly tense, watches her eyes wander the length of her body. She stares at his grandfather’s hand holding his own against her for a second, then lays her head back down in a show of trust.

Kazuyo smiles. “See? You gotta catch her while she’s down. No scratches, no band-aids.”

Tobio watches, enamored with the feel of her soft fur, and nods slowly a few times.

  
  
  
  
  


It’s later in the night when Kei gives his best attempt at a jump serve, sending him and Tobio into snorting laughter when it _whaps_ soundly against the net. He rests his hands on his knees, bent over a little, and makes tired eye contact with Tobio. “Done for the night?”

“Yeah,” Tobio responds, equally and obviously spent as he starts jogging to collect the balls on his side of the net. They fill the ball carts within a few minutes and push them back into the supply closet, grabbing their bags before they flick the light off and lock the gym. 

Kei swings the key around his fingers, looking at Tobio. “Thanks for this.”

“Anytime,” Tobio says, looking into Kei’s face. “We can- do this again if you want.”

“Nice,” Kei blurts out too quickly, and he presses his lips tight. A pause. “That’d be nice.”

Tobio waits a second. “Who are you going to miss? Besides- besides Tadashi, I mean.”

A cool, spring breeze passes between them. The emergency light under the awning between gyms flickers. Uneasy eye contact falters as words sink in too heavy.

“Huh?” 

“Earlier,” Tobio starts, “you said that you’d miss someone besides Tadashi.” He fumbles for more words, mumbling, “unless you didn’t want to say, which-”

“You.”

“-is fine, I- what?”

Kei breathes in shallowly through his nose as their eye contact reconnects. “It’s you, idiot.”

Tobio’s unblinking stings like the raw edges of skin from a ripped band-aid, the adhesive clinging to redness and tenderness. He feels like his chest is shrinking. “Tsukishima-”

“No,” Kei cuts him off, “no, I should go.”

“Just let-”

He silences Tobio with the noise of his shoes thumping on concrete, ignoring him as he leaves him standing on the gym steps. Tobio watches helplessly, unable to catch a full breath starting at Kei’s back in the dark.

  
  
  
  
  


Kei starts letting Sugawara tape his fingers after Tobio did for the first (and last) time.

  
  
  
  
  


It’s a few hours after they get home from his graduation when Tobio wakes up from his nap. His dark bedroom is silent, the muffled sound of the TV coming from the living room. Groggily, Tobio stands and walks over to open the curtains of his window; the sun is setting in a sky of melted pinks and purples, mottled with clouds and shades of orange and cream.

In the middle distance, the neighbor kids toss a rubber ball back and forth. There are the cut-off echoes of laughter, excited screams that pinch the air and release in a second, and Tobio can imagine clearly the _thud_ of the ball in their little hands. Like- how when you’re young it takes everything in you to hold something that big, some kind of supernatural focus. 

Maybe people take a certain kind of focus to hold, too. 

Tobio wonders if holding someone is like the grip of band-aids on one’s skin, of finger tape around sore digits. Or, if it’s like careful distance. If that distance can be closed.

  
  
  
  
  


Their meeting again is an accident; it’s in a dinky 7/11 at two A.M. on the outskirts of Tokyo, blaring overhead lighting a headache to Tobio’s tired eyes when all he wants to do is drive home. 

Tobio rounds a corner, two milk cartons and a bag of chocolate wafers in his bag, and sees Kei knelt in front of the row of animal-shaped cookies. The ones you get as a kid that are covered in frosting.

“Tsukishima,” Tobio says too calmly, and he looks up with a bag of the crackers in his hand. “What’re you doing here?”

Kei’s head whips to the side, and his head tilts down for eyes to peer over his glasses. “Kageyama? I- was visiting Tetsurou for the weekend.” He stands slowly. “You remember Kuroo.”

“He’s still in Tokyo?”

“Business major,” Kei explains. He fiddles with the opening of the cracker bag, fingers dancing along the seam. “What about you?”

“Sometimes I come down and crash at Sugawara's and Daichi's apartment on my breaks.”

Kei’s mouth forms a silent _oh_ , and he looks down at his bag before he starts to speedily walk past Tobio. “I should go-”

“Are you and Kuroo,” Tobio starts suddenly, snatching Kei’s forearm to keep him from bolting, “are you and him- you know.”

Kei yanks his arm out of Tobio’s grip, eyes alight as he stares. “Take a fucking hint,” he bites out, and he goes to open his mouth again but-

Tears well in angry eyes, the crinkle of plastic in clenched hands an afterthought as Tobio registers Kei’s expression. Kei's mouth snaps shut, teeth biting into lips to keep cries contained and he stalks to the checkout counter before Tobio can say anything more.

  
  
  
  
  


He lays in bed after serving practice with Kei, body too abuzz with energy and something else under the surface of his hair-raised skin to sleep. Tobio curls onto his side, hugging a pillow into his chest as he tries to focus on Pepper’s snoring from where she lays on top of his volleyball bag.

The tears, though, spill on their own. The tenderness, the aches in Tobio’s raw chest don’t let up even as he lets it all out into his pillow.

  
  
  
  
  


Tobio asks Kazuyo once why cats will scratch you even after you pet them. Kazuyo ponders it for a moment before answering that cats, like people, can be finicky creatures. Indecisive, he said, and a little touchy. 

But it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try to love them anyway, Kazuyo reminds Tobio sagely; love is worth some scratches and a few band-aids. It's worth it to close the distance sometimes.

**Author's Note:**

> i hope this wasn't too bad for my first attempt at a more mixed-up non-linear narrative than what i've tried previously! this is also, in a way, me processing some of the feelings i'm having as i get ready to enter college and especially the ways in which i find a lot of similarity between kageyama and kazuyo vs. myself and my late grandfather. basically, this is my friendly but unfriendly way of saying that i'm not asking for concrit on this fic at all. it's personal to me in a lot of ways i'm not going to go into.
> 
> you can always drop by [my twitter](https://twitter.com/ushikariare) if you'd like to talk :)
> 
> thank you for reading! comments and kudos appreciated <3


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